The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India on Monday published the first edition of International Technology Engagement Strategy for Quantum, a major step toward shaping India's outward-looking strategy in quantum Science, Technology and Innovation (QSTI), with the aim of speeding up discovery, enhancing innovation, and catalyzing adoption in key sectors.
The report was formally released by PSA Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood on World Quantum Day 2025, which falls on April 14 every year. The report is accompanied with a special value since 2025 has been declared as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQST) by the United Nations and member states.
The strategy report offers an introductory landscape analysis to facilitate domestic and international stakeholders within government, academia, and industry to develop context-specific action points that are in line with their engagement objectives complementing the pursuits of India's National Quantum Mission (NQM) and other existing initiatives by other agencies and stakeholders within the ecosystem, as per the official release.
Speaking about the significance of Quantum Tech, Sood pointed out that it is one of those fields in which every nation is unwilling to fall behind as it is crucial for strategic autonomy, and there cannot be strategic autonomy if one is not quantum safe.
More talking about gaps and possibilities in the industry for India, he said, "India needs to invest in Quantum hardware, we need to cut our dependencies on imports, and developments in all aspects of quantum computing can assist with that. We must bring a lot more money for startups and de-risk the investment, which implies we must create markets for the products.". And that's where all the stakeholders, whether government, private sector, academia, or startups, come in to build this ecosystem," he further added.
We must become a proactive player in setting the world standards for Quantum Tech. That's a gap which we must fill. Because once we have that, we shall also be contributing to standardisation activities, and that is what creates strategic autonomy. We must do that very aggressively and make sure that we have these world standards because our market is not just the Indian market but the global one," he added.
While discussing NQM, Sood said that the mission being implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) considers the entire life cycle of this edge technology -- the R&D required, what is required to bridge that R&D to technology and how to take that to create a product for the market size up.
He also described the major characteristics of the hub-and-spoke model being adopted by NQM at the national level involving 152 researchers from 43 institutions in 17 states and two unin territories.
This first edition of ITES-Q offers a complete picture of both international and domestic quantum ecosystems, including investment analysis, talent building, institutional capabilities, research publications, intellectual property, startups, supply chains, and industrial activity. The ITES-Q is designed to enable effective partnerships and especially contribute to the work of Indian missions overseas in enhancing bilateral and multilateral interactions for QSTI.
